While the Music Plays
by Ophelia's Flower Wilt For Dark
Summary: Spike has died gruesomely, and Buffy is left to clean up the shattered pieces of her now broken life. But the pain may be too great to bear. Complete one-shot.


Disclaimer:I do not claim ownership of any of Mr. Whedon's ingenious characters, I just find them bloody inspiring for   
  
fiction writing.   
  
Bloody fantastic reading all!  
  
While the Music Plays  
  
Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6: Pathetique pounded harshly in her ears as her lips parted slightly. She stared blankly off to   
  
the side ignoring the pain coursing through her.  
  
Ignoring the world around her. Thinking. Just thinking.  
  
How life is so complex. So detailed. So perfect.  
  
Yet so tainted. So human.  
  
The dissonant tones and discordant harmonies helped her to think. And she wouldn't turn if off. The silence and all its   
  
consequences scared her. The distraction of the raucous beat played through her mind and for the briefest of moments she   
  
forgot what had put her in this state. Forgot what had deadened her senses and killed her heart.  
  
Warm trails slid down her face as she stood over the sink, watching mutely as the water poured from the faucet and swirled   
  
down, turning and turning as it disappeared in the drain. Falling into nothingness. Like her purpose. Like her life.  
  
Her head stung and with a fresh wave of pain, the ache in her heart was renewed. She groaned and closed her eyes,   
  
subconsciously willing the headache to dissipate, but the pain was too great. The hurt too augmented to be ignored any   
  
longer.  
  
He was gone. Gone from her, gone from the world. The tears came more freely now as long suppressed memories welled to the   
  
surface. The sight of his smile, that reached his eyes only for her. The sound of his laugh as they talked together during   
  
the night. The feel of his body, his hands, his lips, as they lay together in the darkness. Nothing was left now, and she   
  
was hollow from the loss of him, devoid of any will to live without the demon that had claimed and protected her heart.  
  
She braced herself against the sink, one hand on each side, as she stared impassively at the reflection in the mirror. The   
  
eyes of the mirror image were cold and hollow. Limp hair hung over pale bony shoulders and thin frail arms. The face was   
  
drawn and gaunt, with enlarged, distended, shadowed sections beneath the eyes and dark hollows at her cheeks. She was but   
  
a remnant, a fragment of the girl she had been previously. She found nothing recognizable in the likeness looking back at   
  
her. Nothing to be proud of. Nothing to want to save. Nothing.  
  
She continued staring at her reflection and grimaced as she felt the sharp pricks at her wrists. But the water gushing from  
  
the faucet was no longer clear as it was sucked into the drain. Bit by bit, the water was being tainted. Tainted red.   
  
Tainted with evil, like her life had been.  
  
Pathetique still played but it seemed distant, the accents and melodies muffled, only a small ensemble of woodwinds playing  
  
now. Tchaikovsky's symphony seemed as if it were being played in another room and not coming from the radio sitting on the  
  
toilet seat.  
  
She looked on with vacant eyes, watching as the pure water in the sink was polluted. Her tears mingled with the thick,   
  
crimson liquid that oozed from her wrists and into the surging stream of fluid that came from the faucet.  
  
The sight of crimson prompted the remembrance of the night he had left, the night she had broken in two. She had been the   
  
one to find him, his body mangled and bloody, his platinum hair stained red from blood. He was still alive as she went to   
  
him, and she was able to whisper the words he had so desperately longed to hear,  
  
"I love you."  
  
A light smile graced his features, his hand reaching up to caress her face. He answered her with,   
  
"You too, luv."  
  
Then there was silence. His black duster billowed around his unresponsive form and her heart fractured as she stared at his   
  
serene face. He was so beautiful, even in death.  
  
Her heart had died with him that night. There was nothing to hold her to this world, nothing for her to feel guilty leaving   
  
behind.  
  
A small smile came to her face as her world darkened. No more pain. Soon it would all be over. Soon the burden would be   
  
lifted. The whole room was now in shadow, and all her eyes could see was her fading image in the cracked mirror. But the   
  
reflection was happy now, at peace. She fell to the floor as her eyes closed, her spirit drifting away.  
  
Pathetique was almost nonexistent now; so faint she had to strain to hear it. Tranquil melodies and melodious combinations   
  
of instruments replaced the cacophony of disharmonious chords that had barraged her senses. Her body tingled and she soon   
  
realized she was no longer contained in a cage of skin and bone. Her spirit floated freely above her own dead body, and she   
  
stared at it where it lay. Her last expression had been a smile, lingering on the emaciated face of the girl she used to be.  
  
She drifted backwards towards the ceiling and hovered there as the door opened and a worried face poked its way in. Her   
  
eyes fell as she saw the torment on her the young man's face. She saw the tears fall and splatter from the brunette's eyes   
  
on to the floor as the man she had loved as a brother, a confidante for so many years, dropped to the side of her dead body   
  
and gathered the lifeless form into his arms.  
  
She heard the anguished cry as he called for their third. Saw the pain that contorted the red head's generally jovial face   
  
as she too dropped down alongside the dead body. Neither cared that their clothes were being stained red from the blood on   
  
the floor, they merely sat and cried over the body. Cried because she was dead. Cried because they had watched her wither   
  
away to this and done nothing.  
  
She floated down next to them and whispered to their minds.  
  
"Xander? Don't cry Xander. It's not your fault. Wil, don't! Crying won't do anything. Can't you see? I'm smiling! I'm happy."  
  
And slowly they calmed down. Though still distraught with grief, their hysterics stopped, and then Xander stood to call Giles   
  
and the paramedics. The spirit was right. There was nothing they could do.  
  
She drifted back to the ceiling and through it, soaring into the night sky and to peace.  
  
Pathetique's melodies are barely a whisper now, the sound of a lone oboe carrying through. As her spirit disappears the   
  
oboist departs as well.  
  
The music stops.   
  
AN: Morbid I know....but I enjoyed writing this piece immensely and do so hope you enjoy reading it. Don't be afraid to pop   
  
me a chat!  
  
Brea 


End file.
